Three days have passed since I sent that letter off secret. I wouldn't
let Miss Katherine know for a billion dollars that I'd sent it, but I'm
glad I did. I'm sure she's got something in her heart she don't talk
about, for last night, when she didn't know I was looking, I saw that
same quiet proudness come in her face I saw the night of the ball.
I don't know how long it takes to go to Michigan, not knowing much about
travelling, as I've never been out of Yorkburg since I came in. But some
day I'm going around the world, and I'm going to see everything anybody
else has ever seen before I marry my children's father. Of course, after
I get married he will be busy, and there will be always some excuse that
will make you tired. I'm going beforehand. Miss Webb says marriage is
very uncertain.
This is a grand day. The crocuses are peeping up just as pert and
pretty. The little brown buds on the trees have turned green and getting
bigger every day, and even the air feels like it's had a bath. I just
love the spring. Everything says to you: "Good-morning! Here we are
again. Let's begin all over." And inside I say, "All right," and I mean
it; but oh, Mary Cary, you're so unreliable. There are times when your
future looks very much like a worm of the dust.
Miss Bray is real sick. She hasn't been well for a long time, and she
looks like she's shrivelling, though still fat. She has nervous
dyspepsia, which they say is ruinous to dispositions, and Miss Bray's
isn't the kind for any sort of sickness to be free with.
It certainly is making her queer, for she's changed from sharpness to
tearfulness, and she weeps any time. A thing I never thought I'd live to
see.
Poor creature, I feel real sorry for her. Miss Jones says she's worn
out, but I don't believe it's that. I believe it's conscience and
coffee. Miss Bray isn't an all-over bad person. If it wasn't I knew she
told stories, I could have stood the other things. But when a person
tells stories, what have you got to hold on to? Nothing.
I believe it's those stories that's giving her trouble in her stomach.
Anything on your mind does, and Miss Bray looks at me so curious and so
nervous, sometimes, that I can't help feeling sorry for her.
I don't believe she will ever get well until she repents and confesses
and crosses her heart that she won't do it again. A confession is a
grand relief.
Suppose Dr. Parke Alden don't write, don't notice me! I will be that mad
and mortified I will wish I was dead. But if he don't answer that
letter, I will write a few more things to him before dying, for, if I am
an Orphan, I oughtn't to be treated like a piece of imagination.
The black hen has got a lot of little chickens and the jonquils are in
bloom. The sun is as warm as June, but I'm shivering all the time, and
Miss Katherine says she don't understand me. She gave me a tonic to make
me eat more. I don't want to eat. I want a letter.
* * * * *
Jerusalem the Golden! Now, what do you reckon has happened! Nothing will
evermore surprise Mary Cary, mostly Martha.
If the moon ever burns, or the stars come to town, or the Pope marries a
wife, or the dead come to life, I will just say, "Is that so?" and in my
heart I will know a stranger thing than that.
Yesterday Miss Bray sent for me to come to her room. She was sick in
bed, and her frizzes weren't frizzed, and she looked so old and pitiful
that I took hold of her hand and said, "I'm awful sorry you are sick,
Miss Bray."
And what did she do but begin to cry, and such a long crying I never saw
anybody have. I knew there was a lot to come out and she'd better get
rid of it, so I let it keep on without remarks, and after a while she
told me to shut the door, and get her a clean handkerchief out of her
top bureau-drawer.
I did it. Then she told me to sit down. I did that, too, and it's well I
did. If I hadn't I'd have fell. Her words would have made me.
"Mary Cary," she said, "you have given me a great deal of trouble, and
at times you've nearly worried me to death. But never since you've been
here have you ever told a story, and that's what I've done." And she put
her head down in her pillow, and I tell you she nearly shook herself,
out of bed she cried so.
I was so surprised and confused I didn't know whether I was awake or
asleep. But all of a sudden it came to me what she meant, and I put my
arms around her neck and kissed her. That's what I did, Martha or no
Martha; I kissed her. Then I said:
"Miss Bray, I'm awful glad you are sorry you did it. If you're sorry
it's like a sponge that wipes it off, and don't anybody but you and me
and God know about that particular one. And we can all forget it, if
there's never any more."
And then she cried harder than ever. Regular rivers. I didn't know the
top of your head could hold so much water.
But she said there would never be any more, for she'd never had any
peace since the way I looked at her that day, and she couldn't stand it
any longer. She didn't know why I had that effect on her, but I did, and
she'd sent for me to talk about it.
Well, we talked. I told her I didn't think just being sorry was enough,
and I asked her how sorry was she.
"I don't know," she said, and then she began on tears again, so I
thought I'd better be quick while the feeling lasted.
"Well, you know, Miss Bray," I began, "Pinkie Moore hasn't been adopted
yet. She never will be while the ladies think what you told them is
true. You ought to write a letter to the Board and tell them what you
said wasn't so."
"I can't!" she said; and then more fountains flowed. "I can't tell them
I told a story!"
"But that's what you did," I said. "And when you've done a mean thing,
there isn't but one way to undo it--own up and take what comes. But it's
nothing to a conscience that's got you, and is never going to let you go
until you do the square thing. If you want peace, it's the only way to
get it."
"But I can't write a letter; I'm so nervous I couldn't compose a line."
And you never would have known her voice. It was as quavery as old
Doctor Fleury's, the Methodist preacher who's laid off from work.
"I'll write it for you." And I hopped for the things in her desk. "You
can copy it when you feel better." And, don't you know, she let me do
it! After three tryings I finished it, then read it out loud:
DEAR LADIES,--If any one applies for Pinkie Moore, I hope you will
let her go. Pinkie is the best and most useful girl in the Asylum.
More than two years ago I said differently. It was wrong in me, and
Pinkie isn't untruthful. She hasn't a bad temper, and never in her
life took anything that didn't belong to her. I am sorry I said
what I did. She don't know it and never will, and I hope you will
forgive me for saying it.
Respectfully,